Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., led a Tuesday filing of the ZTE Enforcement Review and Oversight (Zero) Act, to enforce the full terms of the Department of Commerce's settlement with the Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer that lifted a ban on U.S. companies selling telecom software and equipment to ZTE. The settlement, which took effect in July, included $1.76 billion in fines and other fees and an agreement for ZTE to allow U.S. inspectors to monitor the company's compliance with U.S. export control laws (see 1807130048). Rubio and Warner were among a group of senators who unsuccessfully pushed, including in the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, to restore Commerce's ZTE ban. The final NDAA measure instead included language that bars U.S. agencies from using “risky” technology produced by ZTE or fellow Chinese telecom equipment firm Huawei (see 1808010068). “ZTE has a history of violating U.S. sanctions and misleading the U.S. government,” Warner said in a news release. “Unfortunately this Administration has shown that it cannot be trusted to defend American interests and punish companies like ZTE that pose a threat to our security. This bipartisan legislation would ensure that if ZTE once again violates trade restrictions or its agreement with the U.S. it will be held accountable in a significant, painful way.”

Retired longtime House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., is “in good spirits, cracking jokes like always" at a Detroit area hospital after an apparent heart attack Monday, said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., his wife, in a statement. John Dingell, long one of the top members of the House on communications policy, was the committee’s lead Democrat beginning in 1981 until House Democrats ousted him after the 2008 election in favor of now ex-Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif. John Dingell left the House in 2015 after choosing not to seek re-election (see 1402250056).

Representatives for Google, Twitter, Apple, Amazon, AT&T and Charter Communications are expected to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee on Sept. 26 to discuss potential online privacy legislation (see 1808280039). Witnesses are Google Chief Privacy Officer Keith Enright, Twitter Global Data Protection Officer Damian Kieran, Apple Vice President-Software Technology Guy Tribble, Amazon Vice President Andrew DeVore, AT&T Senior Vice President-Global Public Policy Len Cali and Charter Communications Senior Vice President-Policy and External Affairs Rachel Welch. The session is set for 10 a.m. in G50 Dirksen. “This hearing will provide leading technology companies and internet service providers an opportunity to explain their approaches to privacy, how they plan to address new requirements from the European Union and California, and what Congress can do to promote clear privacy expectations without hurting innovation,” said Chairman John Thune, R-S.D.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) said Tuesday he's appointing former Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., to temporarily fill the seat of former Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who died last month (see 1808270039). Kyl, a leading Senate Judiciary Committee member, retired in 2013 after choosing not to seek re-election (see 1211080073). He was active during his final term on cybersecurity and patent law revamp legislative efforts. He also raised national security objections to the FCC about Huawei and ZTE doing business in the U.S., which Capitol Hill revisited this year (see 1102140083 and 1808010068). Kyl was part of a group of 77 top national security and cybersecurity experts who sought a delay of the 2016 Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition over national security concerns (see 1609270054).

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., who died Saturday at age 81, was Senate Commerce Committee chairman for three periods during the decade after enactment of the Telecom Act -- 1997-2001, a five-month period in 2001, and 2003-2005. During his final chairman stint, McCain took a substantial interest in a la carte cable. More recently, he was active on cybersecurity, including the push to create a separate Senate cybersecurity committee (see 1612190061).

The family of Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said Friday the senator has “chosen to discontinue” his more than yearlong treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer. McCain was diagnosed with cancer in July 2017 and in the year since “has surpassed expectations for his survival,” the senator’s family said in a statement. “But the progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict.” McCain, a three-time former Senate Commerce Committee chairman, oversaw the committee for a majority of the decade immediately after passage of the 1996 Telecom Act. He has more recently been active on cybersecurity issues, including the push to create a separate Senate cybersecurity committee (see 1612190061).

Large tech firms would feel the impact of an anti-corruption bill introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat said Tuesday. In 2017, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft spent a combined $50 million lobbying Democrats and Republicans, Warren said. The Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act would ban congressional lawmakers, cabinet secretaries, federal judges and other senior officials from trading stock; ban foreign lobbying; ban lawmakers, presidents and agency heads for life from lobbying; and establish an anti-corruption agency.

Launching a “censored” search engine in China risks making Google “complicit in human rights abuses related to China’s rigorous censorship regime,” said Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Friday in a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai. Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; and Cory Gardner, R-Colo., also signed the letter. The lawmakers said Google’s Dragonfly search engine would “prohibit websites and search terms deemed objectionable by the Chinese government and Communist Party.” Google’s plan is inconsistent with its March 2010 decision to stop censoring results on Google.cn after a cyberattack compromised Gmail accounts linked to dozens of Chinese human rights activists, they wrote. The senators asked how Google can reconcile its plan with the platform’s “unofficial motto” of “Don’t be evil.” Google didn’t comment.

The Senate-passed FY 2019 “minibus” appropriations bill (HR-6147), which includes FCC and FTC funding, includes two tech-centric amendments. One would bar the Department of Transportation from spending its FY 2019 funding to administer requirements on use of electronic logging devices by operators of commercial motor vehicles. Another allocates $6 million in matching funds to “qualified commercial entities seeking to demonstrate or validate” FAA-designated drone technologies at agency-designated test sites. The Senate passed HR-6147 Wednesday on a 92-6 vote with an amendment that would clarify rules for the $600 million Rural Utilities Service-administered pilot distance learning, telemedicine and broadband program (see 1808010064).

The Senate voted 87-10 Wednesday to pass the conference version of the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (HR-5515), with language to bar U.S. agencies from using “risky” technology produced by ZTE or fellow Chinese telecom equipment firm Huawei. The House approved the conference HR-5515 last week (see 1807260049). Conferees agreed to attach the Huawei/ZTE language originally included in the House-passed HR-5515 instead of a harder-line anti-ZTE provision in the Senate-passed version (see 1807200053). Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said he was one of the 10 senators who voted against the conference HR-5515 because it didn't include stronger anti-ZTE language. "The threat posed by China and its telecommunications as such are so severe and significant that it regrettably brings me to the point where I cannot support a bill I have always supported" since joining the Senate in 2011, Rubio said on the Senate floor. "We need to wake up to the threat that China poses to this country because we are running out of time to do so." Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., tweeted he also voted against HR-5515 because it "caved to the White House to let ZTE off the hook." The conference HR-5515 also includes a modified version of the language from the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act that originally appeared in the Senate-passed NDAA (see 1807190064). That HR-4311/S-2098 language would expand the scope of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to probe more investments, including in "critical" technology or infrastructure companies (see 1804260029).